Former USAF Astronaut—Now NASA’s No. 2—on Russia, the Future of the ISS, and the Military on the Moon

May 9, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

Drawn closer by business interests and geopolitical necessity, the military and NASA “would be remiss” not to collaborate more, said the space agency’s No. 2 political appointee Pam Melroy.

Yet as the Defense Department has committed billions in weapons toward a Russian defeat in Ukraine, with both sides trading sanctions, Melroy—NASA’s deputy administrator and a former Air Force astronaut—said the war hadn’t yet hurt relations inside the International Space Station. There, U.S. astronauts and Russian cosmonauts still work side by side.

Melroy touched on NASA’s shared interests with the military in an interview while visiting the aerospace engineering sciences department at the University of Colorado Boulder on May 5.

The ongoing goodwill she described among the space station crew, and continued cooperation with Russia’s space agency, included Russia’s safe return of a U.S. astronaut aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule in March.

But such good relations hadn’t been reflected in the headlines on Earth—or the conditions in orbit—over the past several months, when events surrounding the station served as both a preview and a sideshow to the invasion.

Precarious Scenario

A former test pilot who logged combat and combat support hours along the way, Melroy flew and commanded space shuttle missions, going to space three times, all of which were to construct the ISS.

NASA believes the now two-decades-old station could operate safely through 2031, but anything beyond 2024 would rely on Russia to extend its agreement to cooperate. Russia built and operates the Zvezda Service Module that houses aspects of the station’s operations including flight control and propulsion.

However, even with Russian crew onboard, the ISS became the focal point of news coverage following a Russian military demonstration in the run-up to the invasion, and the station has provided a rhetorical opportunity for the Russian government since.

ISS crew members had to take cover inside their return capsules Nov. 15, 2021, in the immediate aftermath of a Russian missile test that destroyed a defunct Soviet satellite. The collision created a debris field that passed too closely to the ISS in the subsequent orbits right after the hit.

Experts speculated that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin intended the test as a “show of strength” as Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s border. Then a day after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the head of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, Dimitry Rogozin, began mentioning how the ISS would uncontrollably deorbit without Russia’s participation.

Pointing out that “it’s just important to understand that Rogozin is a politician, and he is operating in a deeply political environment in Russia right now,” Melroy said she hadn’t found anything alarming about a more recent remark.

Rather than saying in early May that Russia was walking away from the ISS when its agreement runs out in 2024, “he said that they will honor their commitment until 2024 and give us a one-year notice before they leave,” Melroy said.

U.S. and European officials have estimated that Russia’s anti-satellite test in November created sufficient debris to double the number of evasive maneuvers that satellites such as the ISS will have to make in low Earth orbit. Meanwhile, concern exists that some spacefaring entity could ultimately weaponize debris.

In a reference to Iran and North Korea testing intercontinental ballistic missiles, a fellow former astronaut of Melroy’s, now-Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), said in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 8:

“One concern is that ICBMs can be used to create a debris cloud in low Earth orbit, and that could impact U.S. satellites.”

‘Commercial’ in Common

Even with “very different, very distinct missions,” NASA and the military “need to be connected at the top, and we need to be connected at the operational working level,” said Melroy, describing the current scenario in which NASA personnel at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, for example, work closely with military personnel at Patrick Space Force Base to carry out a busy calendar of space launches.

The same holds true for the teams who monitor the trajectory of the ISS to keep it from colliding with other objects in orbit.

At the highest administrative levels, NASA and DOD officials recognize that “what we each do impacts the other,” Melroy said. But “there is this big gap in the field, in the middle, that don’t actually work very closely together.”

However, “I think you see these places where industry is dragging us together,” she said, such as a mutual interest in the services of commercial remote sensing providers.

As DOD entities have begun to stitch together government and commercial space assets into a so-called “hybrid architecture,” NASA has demonstrated overt successes in contracting for things that the government would have otherwise bought and owned the hardware for.

Particularly fruitful over the past decade have been NASA’s public-private partnerships to fund transportation to and from the ISS. SpaceX and Northrop Grumman now resupply cargo—and, in SpaceX’s case, crew. The companies had to partially pay for the development of the space capsules that they could then turn into private fleets.

Melroy reported that companies given contracts more recently, to robotically deliver research payloads to the moon, “have found other customers right away.”

Incorporating commercial constellations is one strategy the Space Force is pursuing to fulfill Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall’s No. 1 “operational imperative” to create a resilient space architecture. Proliferating the numbers and types of surveillance sources, as the thinking goes, will make the U.S.’s overall operation more resilient.

Meanwhile, U.S. Space Command has said it’s investigating what services commercial providers have to offer that could fill capability gaps, though some experts question the legality of intermingling military and civilian property. At least one cyberattack against a U.S. satellite constellation has occurred during the war in Ukraine.

Military on the Moon

Aside from the possibility of a science station, Melroy dismissed the prospect of a future military base on the moon based on the U.S.’s participation in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.

“I’m happy to report to you that as the deputy administrator of NASA, NASA will follow all treaties and laws, and I support and uphold that,” Melroy said.

The U.S. is “very separated in civil space and national security space,” Melroy said. “That’s not true around the world. What that means is [that] if you’re smart, you understand that other people may think we’re doing stuff together, even when we’re not.

“So actually making sure that we’re talking at the highest policy level [is important] about things like, ‘What are we doing? And what are the implications of that?’”

Military research and “other peaceful purposes” a military might undertake receive an exclusion under the treaty that otherwise prohibits the “establishment of military bases, installations, and fortifications; the testing of any type of weapons; and the conduct of military manuevers on celestial bodies.”

But as reported by Politico in March, the military already has plans for the moon that may amount to militarization, such as interest by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in building large structures there; and by the Air Force Research Laboratory in a surveillance network to cover the space between the Earth and the moon.

The commander of U.S. Space Command, Army Gen. James H. Dickinson, has said the military plans to “be there” for NASA and commercial providers of “critical” space infrastructure as activity picks up on and around the moon.

NASA and the military both have a stake in shaping norms of behavior in space, Melroy said, which along with the development of new technologies, could be another opportunity for NASA and the military to work together.

Pentagon Taking a ‘Three-FYDP’ Approach to Building Future Force

May 7, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Pentagon knows the equipment and posture it must have now and what it must have 15 years from now. But filling in the middle is what’s delaying the public release of the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, which now may not come out for several months, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks said.

Speaking at a Reagan Forum event to explain the connection between the defense budget request and the NDS, Hicks said the administration has fulfilled its requirement to provide Congress with a classified summary of the NSS and NDS.

But, “A strategy is not a document. A strategy is something that you live and execute, and it should be constantly reviewed and updated. That’s true of our NDS, it’s true of the National Security Strategy. And I do anticipate you’ll see that in the coming months,” she said. It’s important to take the time to “get that right,” she added, because of the fast pace of change in international security.

Hicks said the administration plans to “work with Congress” on addressing spending shortfalls resulting from inflation. The fiscal 2023 budget, she said, was built on inflation estimates that proved short of reality, and will need to be revisited.

The NSS is not yet a “finalized document,” Hicks said. Managing and organizing the provision of aid to Ukraine has consumed the attention of Administration leaders, she said while admitting, “you have to walk and chew gum at the same time.”

While the Administration would like to provide a “fuller” unclassified version of the NDS, “it’s appropriate to wait to see how the NSS is built out. So we make sure it’s … nested there.”

Despite criticisms that Russia was not deterred from attacking Ukraine, it has not attacked the U.S. or NATO, Hicks asserted, saying deterrence has been effective in that regard. The U.S. had no mutual-defense agreement with Ukraine, she noted, although the Administration and Congress have “delivered over $4 billion in security assistance to Ukraine” since 2020 “and over $3 billion since the invasion [began] on Feb. 24. That’s remarkable.” She also noted that President Joe Biden has requested an additional $33 billion in assistance to Ukraine, “$16 billion of which will be for the Department of Defense.”

Hicks explained that she’s “proselytizing a three-FYDP,” or five-year Future Years Defense Plan, view of meeting both immediate threats—such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—and longer-term threats, such as China’s designs on Taiwan.

The first FYDP—the one spelled out in the fiscal 2023 defense budget request—deals with the “here and now” threat, Hicks said, while two FYDPs away is the objective force. What’s taking time to plan is “how you get from here to there.”

The first FYDP is about “what do I need now. And ‘now’ for us … is ‘23 to ’27.” She also noted that 2027 is a “notable” year for China because it’s said it intends to have the capabilities necessary to take Taiwan by that time.

In the first FYDP, it’s “less on new capital investments that take a long time to come to fruition,” but on “that campaigning and deterrent capability today.” The focus is on survivability, cyber and space resilience, “guided munitions,” and a steady pace of nuclear modernization, she said, acknowledging the latter is an area where “we were under-invested in for so long that we’re now having to pay that price.”

Jumping ahead to the third FYDP, Hicks said that will be the “force design” period with “robots, and all the future stuff” that needs to be developed now, with heavy research and development.

The challenge will be winning the trust of Congress that “we … actually have a viable pathway to that.” The “lack of trust and confidence is what keeps sliding us back.”

Showing that there is a “viable pathway” to the force design is what happens in the middle FYDP, Hicks said, using new authorities from Congress and accelerating experimentation and building out the Joint Warfighting Concept.

Characteristic of the middle FYDP are “pathway finders, … making sure that digital backbone” and software efforts are “tying the concepts to actual capabilities that can be fielded. I think that’s where we have to make a lot of progress.”

What the Pentagon doesn’t want, she said, “is added topline that’s filled with new program, that we can’t support and afford in the out-years and that doesn’t cover inflation. That is my No. 1 concern.”

Hicks said the U.S. correctly predicted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and one of the pleasant “surprises” has been that NATO allies “have really embraced the moment” by heightening their readiness, providing aid, and standing together.

“And of course, the Ukrainian people have really demonstrated that the will to fight for your country to protect democracy is probably the most powerful tool” anyone has applied.

Although Russia was not deterred from attacking Ukraine, it has “not yet seen the full effects” of economic sanctions, and in their full “devastating” measure, Hicks said she thinks Russia will be deterred from expanding the scope of the war.

Hicks said there are lessons to be learned from Ukraine, although that conflict is “not done, … and lessons will build.” But “a major lesson is the will to fight and a demonstrated capability to fight.” That’s a “clear takeaway for Taiwan, … making sure they are investing themselves in the self-defense that they need to have.” The U.S. will support Taiwan with equipment but there are “more reforms they need to undertake, and we will support them on that.”

A broader takeaway is that “market economies … have huge throw-weight,” and “when they choose to bring that to bear, it can have devastating effect … That is a big lesson” and Europeans can conclude that large investments in defense can have strong deterrent effect. This will also be “a big takeaway for the Chinese on the costs of aggression.”

First Phoenix Ghost Training Complete as Ukraine Aid Shifts From Air Defense to UAS

May 6, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The flat, open lands of the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine call for a different type of weapon, and the U.S. is responding with more unmanned aerial systems and the training to use them, completing the first seven-day course with Ukrainians on the use of the Air Force’s Phoenix Ghost system.

About 20 Ukrainian soldiers are wrapping up their training on the Air Force’s newest UAS weapon, Phoenix Ghost. Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby declined to say where the training was conducted, how many more trainings may take place, and whether any of the new systems had arrived inside Ukraine. But Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William A. LaPlante told journalists May 6 that the weapon was made by the Air Force’s Big Safari office, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, which works to quickly develop special-purpose weapons systems.

Wright-Patterson could not immediately respond to a request by Air Force Magazine for comment.

With a $33 billion supplemental before Congress and just $250 million in presidential drawdown authority remaining, the Pentagon is catering to Ukraine’s need for more artillery rather than air defense systems such as Stinger missiles, the Pentagon said May 6.

“We’re focused on providing the Ukrainians in these recent weeks artillery, long range fires,” Kirby said in response to a question from Air Force Magazine.

Kirby said Russia continues to strike Ukraine from the air, though Russian pilots maintain “risk aversion,” choosing to fly the majority of their missions and fire from inside Russian territory. Kirby would not rule out Ukraine’s use of short-range air defenses in Donbas, but he underscored that the type of assistance has changed.

“The gun battles are real, and they’re happening every day from both sides,” Kirby said. “What the Donbas requires are the kinds of capabilities we’re focused on providing the Ukrainians.”

Recent defense assistance has included armored personnel carriers, howitzers, and 155 mm rounds.

The 7th Army Training Command in Grafenwoehr, Germany, hopes to train Ukrainians on site, and its commander said May 4 that “observers” such as UASs are being used to improve targeting of Russians.

“We are training them on how to use observers, whether they are air-based, or ground-based, or are any other observers, into what they’re doing,” unit commander Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Hilbert told journalists in a telephone briefing.

But the focus on UASs in Ukraine is clear from the manifests of weapons moving quickly to the Ukraine front line.

LaPlante said the April 1 Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative worth $300 million had so for yielded $136.8 million in contracts, including $19.7 million for Puma and $17.8 million for Switchblade UAS systems. DOD has promised some 700 Switchblades to Ukraine, of which about 100 have been delivered.

The biggest-ticket items, however, are communication devices worth $61.4 million and advanced precision kill weapon systems worth $22.6 million, LaPlante said.

Initially slow, the defense production line for some items to support the Ukraine war effort are now “hot,” he added.

“We are in contact with industry every day as our requirements evolve,” said LaPlante, who held a binder with more than 300 proposals from industry offering solutions to quickly deliver weapons to Ukraine. “This is pretty unprecedented, the amount of munitions that are being used right now in the last month.”

The Defense Logistics Agency’s request for information published April 22 calls on the defense industry to help “accelerate production and build more capacity.”

In the meantime, U.S. unmanned aerial systems are filling niche needs. “There are lots of UAS systems, and each UAS system does something slightly different,” LaPlante said.

Training courses for Ukrainians wrapped up in recent days as the U.S. continued to deliver American weapon systems that differ from the Soviet-made systems they are used to. As of May 6, more than 220 Ukrainian soldiers had been trained for the M777 howitzer, with another 150 in training. Some 15 soldiers had trained on the MPQ-64 Sentinel mobile air defense radar, and 60 soldiers had trained in the M113 armored personnel carriers, with 50 more soldiers in training.

In recent days, lawmakers have expressed concern that U.S. stocks of Javelin anti-tank weapons and Stinger air defense systems are running out with industrial production capacity lagging behind. LaPlante said the first check has been cut to replace the U.S. munitions, with $3.5 billion set aside from a March 15 supplemental bill. Another $5.4 billion as part of President Joe Biden’s proposed $33.5 billion supplemental bill is now before Congress.

LaPlante said the idea is to replace those items one for one, but evaluations are being made for how to replace older models that are no longer in production.

“It’s one for one to the best you can do or the equivalent of that,” he said.

“The situation that we find ourselves in is a situation that unfortunately happens periodically,” LaPlante added. “All of a sudden, we find our production lines have to be boosted up.”

New Brown and Blue Books: Air Force Releases Updates to Foundational Documents

May 6, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Two of the Air Force’s foundational documents received updates May 6, as the service released new versions of its Blue and Brown Books—“The Profession of Arms: Our Core Values” and “The Enlisted Force Structure,” respectively.

The release of the new texts, which lay down many of the core concepts that shape and define the Air Force, comes as the service faces a pivotal moment, transitioning away from conflict in the Middle East to competition with great powers like China and Russia—a change senior leaders say brings massive stakes that will require some fundamental changes.

As the Air Force looks to its future, it must also revisit some “foundational things that every Airman [needs] to know,” Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass told Air Force Magazine.

“In order for us to have talented Airmen that we need in the Air Force of 2030, we can’t just … walk through the motions and haphazardly get after stuff and update as needed,” Bass told Air Force Magazine. “We need to be deliberate about every single thing that we’re doing.”

She added, “There were some foundational things that we have to get back to, in my mind, the basics … And in the same sense, there is a lot of aspiration and futures and design-thinking and talk in this document that will help us get after our Air Force really being forward-thinking for the long game.”

The new Books are available now online, and according to a Facebook post from Bass, physical copies are being ordered for all new accessions, professional military education centers, and combat aviation advisors. Commands will also receive details on how to get hard copies, Bass added.

Blue

In the mid 1990s, the Air Force was struggling “in the wake of several … ethical and moral challenges.” In 1994, a pair of F-15s shot down two Army helicopters in a tragic case of friendly fire, killing 26 service members and civilians. A little over a month later, there was a highly publicized fatal B-52 crash partially blamed on leadership failing to discipline a reckless pilot. Readiness seemed to be in decline, raising fears of a “hollow force.”

Looking to revitalize the force, Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald R. Fogleman turned to Gen. Billy J. Boles, head of Air Education and Training Command. Together, they identified and codified three core values—integrity, service, and excellence. Those values, and the principles behind them, formed the basis for a slim pamphlet distributed throughout the force that came to be known as the “Little Blue Book.”

The Little Blue Book is itself an evolution of Air Force Regulation 30-1, “Air Force Standards,” released in 1983. And as the years passed, the book has continued to evolve, ranging from more than 35 pages to less than 15.

The 2022 Blue Book is 16 pages and shares certain fundamentals with previous versions, including the Airman’s Creed, the Code of Conduct, and the Air Force Oaths. It also shares the same core values: Integrity First, Service Before Self, and Excellence In All We Do.

There are, however, several tweaks. Included in the new version is a paragraph in the introduction reiterating that Airmen have a responsibility to not engage in or tolerate “harassment, sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, bullying, extremism, and discrimination,” as they run contrary to the core values.

This addition is in line with one of the recommendations from the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military that was accepted by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III.

The new Blue Book also adds a section under the core value of Integrity First, highlighting the importance of humility.

“A person of integrity grasps and is sobered by the extraordinary task of defending the Constitution of the United States,” the new paragraph reads. “We practice humility by putting others before ourselves. We seek to add value through community and humanitarian support. We serve with gratitude and without arrogance.”

The revision also includes a new section detailing four reasons why the core values are articulated and recognized:

Tell us the price of admission to the Air Force itself;
Point to what is universal and unchanging in the Profession of Arms;
Help us get a fix on the ethical climate of an organization;
Serve as beacons vectoring us back to the path of professional conduct.

The new Blue Book closes with the Air Force’s new mission statement, released in 2021: “To fly, fight, and win … Air power anytime, anywhere.”

Gone from this update is a section included in the 2015 version titled “Respect.” However, references to respect are scattered throughout the document, including an expanded section under “Service Before Self.” All told, the word “respect” is used 26 times, compared to 15 times in the 2015 version.

Brown

For years now, alongside the Little Blue Book has been the Little Brown Book, or as it is formally known, Air Force Instruction 36-2618, “The Enlisted Force Structure.” Distributed to Airmen at Basic Military Training, the handbook spells out the “professional standards and roles and responsibilities for each enlisted rank,” laying down the structure that governs more than 265,000 enlisted Airmen.

The new Brown Book is 28 pages, and like the new Blue Book, shares some similarities with its predecessors, including a description of the expectations and duties for each rank and enlisted tier—junior Airmen, noncommissioned officers, and senior noncommissioned officers.

It also carries over descriptions of specific enlisted positions like First Sergeant, Senior Enlisted Leader, and Career Field Manager, and breaks down “career-broadening opportunities” like recruiter, AFROTC Training Instructor, Professional Military Education instructor and Curriculum Developer, and Airmen Development Advisors.

However, the new Brown Book includes expanded sections detailing the Air Force’s core missions, the Air Force Speciality Codes, and the concept of multi-capable Airmen—a key part of the Air Force’s new Agile Combat Employment Concept.

The update also links back to the Blue Book by including the Airman’s Creed, the oath of enlistment, and the core values. It too emphasizes that all Airmen have a responsibility to help foster “a culture of respect and trust,” and adds sections on teamwork, leadership, and “followership.”

The publication also includes a new chapter dedicated to the Air Force’s 24 foundational competencies and 10 Airman Leadership Qualities, which will form the basis for the service’s feedback, evaluation, and development.

The ALQs, in particular, “represent the performance characteristics we want to define, develop, incentivize, and measure in our Airmen,” Lt. Gen. Brian T. Kelly, deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services, said in a recent Air Force release.

They include job proficiency, initiative, adaptability, inclusion and teamwork, emotional intelligence, communication, stewardship, accountability, decision making, and innovation, and including them in the document that defines the DNA of the enlisted force is a natural fit. But it’s not just enlisted Airmen who will need to study the ALQs.

“I think I’m as equally excited as you are with this synergy idea, this idea that when we evaluate Airmen, we’re going to use these things that [Chief of Staff] Gen. [Charles Q.] Brown helped us coin as Airmen Leadership Qualities,” Kelly told Bass during a virtual Coffee Talk in June 2021. “Not officer leadership qualities, not enlisted leadership qualities, they’re Airmen Leadership Qualities. … Those were developed both from our Air Force foundational competencies that our Air Education and Training Command produces, but also with an eye towards the future.”

Purple

As Air Force leaders continue to push for modernization across the force, Bass has been vocal in her belief that that push can’t just be about equipment.

“While our pacing threats might be modernizing pretty fast, the one competitive advantage that we have that nobody else has is our people,” Bass said. “And that is what consistently makes us the best, and we can’t take that for granted. We’ve got to continue to hone in on that, capitalize on that, modernize some of our pieces and processes that might not otherwise allow us to keep the best talent in our Air Force.”

In support of that goal, the new Blue and Brown Books are just the latest development. Two weeks ago, the Air Force released “The Blueprint,” a 32-page “living” document intended to be a resource and reference for enlisted Airmen throughout their careers, presenting essential information on everything from Air Force Specialty Codes to different programs Airmen can tap into when leaving the service.

Bass calls it a “cradle-to-grave blueprint on an Airman’s career,” noting its also an objective under the Enlisted Force Development Action Plan. Having all these new documents, intended to be foundational and released in close succession, is all part of the plan.

“We’ve got to think about the long game, and we have to play the long game,” Bass said. “And if we’re going to tap the Airmen that we need, whether it’s 2030, 2035, 2040, it has to be deliberate. Because it’s just not gonna happen any other way, unless we really have some strategy and we really get after the action piece on focusing on and synergizing all the different great efforts that we’re doing to develop our Airmen of today.”

There’s still one more foundational document to come—the “Purple Book.” As detailed in the Action Plan, the Purple Book will include “values, capabilities, and warfighting concepts of the Joint Force team and [connect] Air Force doctrine to the Department of Defense purpose and mission.”

The Air Force’s push to tie itself more deeply to the Joint Force has been underway for years now—the vision of a tightly integrated joint force was perhaps the defining legacy of former Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein. And the Purple Book, targeted for release this summer, will look to identify, codify, and develop the different ways Airmen can further that goal.

“Our team will work with the J7 [joint force development] to help develop a Purple Book that will be focused on how do we develop the joint leaders that we need, that are able to talk joint, train joint, and to some degree, understand and integrate more and have the synergies that we need with our brothers and sisters from the other services,” Bass said.

What a NATO Bid by Finland Could Mean for US Air Force Arctic Cooperation

May 6, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Finnish fighter pilots take off, land, and fly in harsh Arctic conditions routinely—all within range of Russian air defenses. They often share these specialized capabilities with the U.S. Air Force to hone Arctic agile combat employment (ACE) concepts. But as the Nordic nation contemplates a NATO bid, Finland worries it could be left in the cold if Russia attacks before a potential Article 5 protection is triggered.

“We have to be ready to defend ourselves against Russia,” a Finnish defense official said at an April 26 background briefing at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, where more than 40 nations gathered to discuss how to better support Ukraine’s war effort against Russia.

“There [aren’t] any ‘in the meanwhile’ security guarantees,” the official added, speaking to journalists on the condition of anonymity.

Finnish defense officials told Air Force Magazine that Finland’s joining NATO would lead to a deeper U.S. Arctic cooperation and Air Force integration, a necessity in a world where Arctic air power is rising in importance.

“There’s absolutely room for integration,” the Finnish defense official said.

The official cited Finland’s decision to purchase the F-35 as a central piece in a strengthening partnership between the air forces of the United States and Finland.

“You could say the F-35 is a Nordic fighter, and it has a big meaning for the future,” the official said, referring to the selection of the Joint Strike Fighter by Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.

The official said Finland’s “suspicions” about Russia were affirmed when Russia invaded Ukraine, raising popular support for joining NATO to nearly 70 percent, its highest ever. The official said the Finnish parliament was reviewing defense material provided in April and that parties were formulating their positions. But Russia could still thwart a NATO bid with an attack.

Sharing a 900-mile border with Russia and with close proximity to Russian air and naval assets near St. Petersburg, Finland for decades has been developing the means to defend itself, creating an Arctic expertise that can benefit the United States.

“We know the Arctic. We know our neighbors. So, we have a lot of understanding competencies concerning these areas that would be an easy benefit for the U.S. armed forces to cooperate with us,” Finland air and defense attaché Col. Petteri Seppala told Air Force Magazine in an interview at the Embassy of Finland in Washington, D.C.

Arctic Agile Combat Employment

Finnish combat pilots must hone skills to operate in harsh winter conditions as a basic operational necessity, including taking off in snowstorms, flying in clouds, and landing on icy runways. In recent years, the Defense Department and most of the military services have received new Arctic strategies. That shift in focus is bringing the U.S. Air Force and a small, yet capable, Finnish Air Force closer together, the Finnish air attaché to the United States told Air Force Magazine.

“The cold climate and high technology, they are not a good combination every time,” the attaché said. “There are ways to do it. It’s not as easy as if you are flying in the California sun all the time.”

The challenge of flying in winter Arctic conditions is one that Finnish pilots know well. Because of Finland’s aviator preparation, its air force is able to use one-third of the maintainers required by the U.S. Air Force, Seppala said.

As the Russian threat rises, and Arctic warfighting skills become more urgent, the Finnish Air Force has experience and tactics it shares with the U.S. Air Force in exchange for help to fill its own capability gaps.

The U.S. Air Force’s new ACE concept, which relies on multi-capable Airmen who can quickly get to and operate in austere locations, “has been the basic ideology of operating the Finnish Air Force,” Seppala said, describing Finland’s own version of ACE, which is complicated by Finland’s geographic proximity to Russian anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) weapons. In fact, almost all of Finland’s air bases are inside the A2/AD bubble created by Russia.

“So, we have to be able to be agile. We have to be able to be fast. We have to be able to do every possible method and tool to be able to operate inside that bubble,” Seppala said. “That is the reason that the U.S. Air Force was really interested in doing some cooperation with us, because we had done it all the time. And we are still doing it.”

U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), headquartered at Ramstein, coordinates cooperation with Finland and has seen a host of benefits in recent years.

“Finland’s air forces have a great deal of knowledge and innovation they share with the U.S. Air Force about dispersal operations and other concepts related to agile combat employment,” a USAFE spokesperson told Air Force Magazine, noting that Finnish defense and air attachés in Washington also have delivered briefings to U.S. Air Force staff.

Finland is a “key contributor” to the Arctic Challenge exercise series and to trilateral training aimed at enhancing interoperability with the U.S. and Swedish Air Force. Finland’s biennial premier Arctic exercise is its own version of Red Flag with partners Norway and Sweden, and the participation of Denmark and USAFE, scheduled to be held again in 2023.

Finland’s northernmost Lapland region of mires and forests is similar to parts of Canada and Alaska with vast air spaces for maneuvering but a challenging environment with extreme climates.

Finland’s Air Force has been flying since 1918. A small but “really efficient” service of 2,000 airmen operate 62 F/A-18s, command-and-control aircraft, and air transport over a vast and sparsely inhabited territory that reaches into the Arctic and along the border with Russia, explained Seppala. Finland plans to upgrade its Air Force with 64 F-35s by 2028. Aircraft will begin arriving in 2025 with full operational capability expected by 2031.

“The Finnish Defence Forces, and if we talk about the air forces, especially, they are even more interoperable with NATO than some of the member air forces are,” Seppala said.

Finland’s adoption of the F-35 is believed by both sides to be an avenue to deepen opportunities for interoperability, joint training, and refinement of Arctic skills.

“We gain a great deal of insight every time we get the chance to train with Finland,” the USAFE spokesperson said. “Given the importance of the Finnish Air Force in U.S. Air Force efforts to grow our knowledge and experience in Arctic operations, we expect plenty of opportunities for combined exercises between Finnish and U.S. F-35 aircraft.”

Once Finland phases in its F-35 fleet, Seppala expects a host of integrated exercises, to include virtual exercises and flying with Alaskan F –35s. This will complement existing exercises in which Finnish F/A-18s practice refueling with USAF KC-135s.

The Russian Threat

The Nordic country is particularly worried that Russia could attack its territory as a way of preventing the 30 NATO members from agreeing to admit Finland.

“We don’t have bombers. We don’t have tankers. We don’t have an AWACS. So, we lack many capabilities,” Seppala said. “That is the reason that we really need to have good, close, deep cooperation with some of our key partners.”

While observing defense exercises in Finland on May 4, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said the United Kingdom would help defend Finland if it were attacked by Russia while awaiting NATO membership. Wallace made a similar guarantee in April to Sweden, which is expected to jointly submit an application to join NATO alongside Finland.

The United States has not publicly made such a guarantee, but the Defense Department said it would “find ways” to come to Finland’s aid.

“Both Finland and Sweden are close and valued defense partners of the United States and of NATO,” DOD spokesperson Marine Corps Lt. Col. Anton T. Semelroth told Air Force Magazine in a statement.

“Our militaries have worked together for many years,” he added. “We are confident that we could find ways to address any concerns either country may have about the period of time between a NATO membership application and their potential accession to the Alliance.”

Even defense assistance comes with limitations, as Ukraine is learning. Russia is already using hybrid warfare techniques against Finland, including cyber, information, and other measures, Seppala said.

“We are prepared for them. We are prepared to deter them, and we are prepared to fight back,” said Seppala. “But of course, the deterrence would be much better if there would be some friends supporting us.”

A Space Internet Experiment for the Arctic is Among VanHerck’s Priorities

May 5, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

A new experiment integrating commercial satellites with military networks for tactical and strategic communications is one of U.S. Northern Command chief Gen. Glen D. VanHerck’s priorities. The experiment should be concluded within the year, he said during a press briefing.

Speaking from Alaska with Pentagon reporters via telecom May 5, VanHerck said the $50 million experiment being conducted with satellite internet providers OneWeb and Starlink is “for additional communications capabilities in the Arctic.” If successful, the capability could fill “some of the gaps we see” in operating in the Arctic region.

“Starlink and OneWeb have fielded satellite constellations in low earth orbit to provide data and voice communications capabilities. The Department has been gracious enough to give us funding for terminals [that] we have … in some locations in the Arctic that we’re currently evaluating. Their viability and capability to provide the command and control that we need” is being evaluated “from a tactical level … all the way to the strategic level,” VanHerck said, adding that he was planning to visit one of those companies after the press event.

VanHerck and U.S. Strategic Command chief Adm. Charles “Chas” A. Richard were in Alaska for a number of conferences with allies and partners about operating in the Arctic.

“We’re going to … take a look at what” the satellite companies can “offer for us, and the capabilities, and how much they’re moving forward,” VanHerck added. “I look forward to continuing to partner with the department throughout this test to increase our communications capabilities.”

Asked what the next steps of the experiment will be, and on what timeframe, VanHerck said, “I think we’ll be done inside the year. The next step is to provide terminals through the services to integrate …platforms and capabilities, and also within communications nodes, such as command posts and operation centers, to allow us to share data and information, and also with our allies and partners.”

STRATCOM put the experiment on its unfunded priorities list in 2020, prompting Congress to grant the funding, VanHerck said.

“It is absolutely one of my priorities to move out with the testing we’re currently doing, [with] the terminals we’ve fielded right now,” he said.

The Air Force solicited companies to do such a commercial satellite communications demonstration in late January, to explore data and communications through geosynchronous, medium, and low orbit constellations, using a common terminal. The Air Force asked companies to make proposals that would allow switching between space internet providers at need and ruled out proposals that would rely exclusively on a single company or constellation.

The experiment is an outgrowth of an Air Force Research Laboratory program, started in 2017, called DEUCSI, for Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet. Between two and five additional, multi-band, multi-orbit experiments are planned over the next two years.

VanHerck said the capability is a crucial need above 55 degrees north latitude. The arrangement is seen by the Air Force as a possible path to a quickly-fielded capability in the region, “on a par with” the kind of communications available at lower latitudes, the Air Force said in its January solicitation. The Air Force also said it will entertain proposals for companies that are launching new constellations but have not yet done so.

Altus Evacuates 33 Aircraft Ahead of Storms, But No Damage Sustained

May 5, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Altus Air Force Base, Okla., evacuated 33 aircraft of the 97th Air Mobility Wing ahead of severe storms on May 3 and 4 and secured the remaining aircraft on base in hangars, but there was no damage and the full complement of aircraft had returned by May 5.

Due to operational security, the base could not say where its KC-135s, C-17s, and KC-46s were flown to, other than locations chosen “based on availability, proximity, and capability.” Those not evacuated or secured were already away at other locations.

There was no damage and no injury at the base during the harsh weather. Several bouts of severe weather—including thunderstorms producing large hailstones and tornadoes—moved across the south central part of the country over the last few days. Since Hurricane Michael destroyed Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., in 2018—heavily damaging many aircraft, including F-22 fighters—the Air Force has increasingly opted to evacuate aircraft when severe weather threatens.

AFRL Investigates the Actual Space Environment While Simulating It on the Ground

May 5, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

As the Air Force Research Laboratory is studying the space environment in space, it’s also building a new device to simulate the space environment in a lab.

Both activities could help the Space Force predict and track the well being of satellites.

AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., is building a “multi-energy electron source” that emits radiation in dozens of different wavelengths all at once.

A postdoctoral scientist with the directorate, Miles Bengtson, invented the electron device while he was a graduate student at the University of Colorado Boulder. The directorate’s Spacecraft Charging and Instrument Calibration Lab brought Bengtson onboard to advance the electron device to operational status, according to an AFRL release.

Bombardment by the likes of electron radiation can degrade a satellite’s performance.

“The problem” with how labs conventionally recreate such radiation for experiments is that the electron sources “are monoenergetic only,” Bengtson said in the release. “They only emit electrons at one energy,” or wavelength, “whereas the space environment contains electrons distributed across all energies, simultaneously.”

space environment — Miles Bengtson, an Air Force Research Laboratory postdoctoral scientist, stands next to the vacuum chamber in the AFRL Space Vehicles Directorate’s Spacecraft Charging and Instrument Calibration Lab at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., in which the multi-energy electron source is developed and tested. Photo courtesy of AFRL.

The availability of the new testing environment could translate to faster adoption of new construction materials and better experiments to study materials, electronic charging, and other aspects of spacecraft affected by the space environment.

Physicist Ryan Hoffmann, who leads the Spacecraft Charging and Instrument Calibration Lab, said in the release that so far, two prototypes of the new electron device “have demonstrated basic functionality” and that an advanced prototype being built “will be very close to a fully operational model.”

Studying Space From the Ground

Meanwhile, the 72-acre Skywave Technology Laboratory, located on a remote parcel at Kirtland, is getting a better grip on the space environment itself.

The lab’s two antenna setups include a transmission tower with a measuring device; and a long array of poles amounting to a high frequency radar. Both setups beam electromagnetic transmissions into the plasma of Earth’s ionosphere, “propagating” the beams—refracting and scattering them—off the subatomic particles comprising the plasma.

The “state of the plasma,” such as its density and any disturbances, can interfere with space communications, said Todd Parris, chief of the Space Vehicles Directorate’s Geospace Environment Impacts and Application Branch, in an emailed reply to a query by Air Force Magazine.

Officially opened in April, the Skywave lab “will focus mainly on the radio impacts to space services,” Parris said.

Parris confirmed that knowledge of the space environment could help the Space Force distinguish between an electronic attack on a satellite and the environment’s natural effects. Understanding environmental electromagnetic interference “is usually the first step in attributing the effects on a spacecraft—ruling in, or ruling out, the space environment,” he said.

Air Force Expands Retention Bonuses to More Than 60 Career Fields. Here They Are.

May 5, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Airmen and Guardians across 63 different career fields are eligible for selective retention bonuses in fiscal 2022, according to new Department of the Air Force documents—the most since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The SRB program is aimed at incentivizing re-enlistment for experienced Air Force and Space Force service members in career fields that are undermanned or that come with high training price tags. View the full list of qualifying AFSCs here.

However, as the pandemic led to economic uncertainty for many, retention spiked to a 20-year high in 2020. That led the department to slash the number of Air Force Speciality Codes eligible for SRBs, from 72 all the way down to 37.

A mid-2021 update to the program upped the number of eligible AFSCs to 40. Now DAF has expanded the list of eligible AFSCs again as the pandemic’s impacts have waned, the broader workforce has seen a record number of resignations, recruiting faces downward trends, and the Air Force has separated more than 350 Airmen for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

A dozen of the eligible career fields are within the Space Force, ranging from certain intelligence analysts to cyber operations. That marks a dramatic expansion from the last list, when just one Space Force code was included.

The other 51 in the Air Force include everything from explosive ordnance disposal to dental hygienist. Among the new career fields added this year are:

Cyber warfare operations
Cryptologic language analysis for Farsi
Certain kinds of maintenance for F-35s, B-52s, RC-135s, and E-3s
Engineering
Public affairs
Aerospace Medical Service

The size of the bonuses paid out to Airmen and Guardians who reenlist depends on several factors. DOD policy sets the total as the service member’s monthly basic pay at the time of reenlistment multiplied by the number of years of the reenlistment (capped at six years) multiplied by a factor set by the Air Force based on the urgency and importance of manning in the career field. That factor, however, can vary within a career field based on the service member’s “zone”—the amount of experience they have, split into four tiers.

As in years past, the Air Force has capped the SRB at $100,000, with a career cap of $360,000.

This marks the second update to an Air Force bonus program in recent weeks—in early April, the service announced it was expanding its Initial Enlistment Bonus program for new recruits. That expansion also targeted maintainers for bombers and refuelers.

As always, the department is still offering bonuses both to entice and retain Airmen in hard-to-fill fields such as special warfare; explosive ordnance disposal; and survival, evasion, resistance and escape.